Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Progress (was No agrarian revo?)

[Michael Perelman <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I think that Doyle's post is right on target -- not so much about Lou in
particular -- but about the style of communication here.  I would much prefer to
see the list as a collaborative project.

Doyle Saylor wrote:

> Greetings Economists,
>     Louis Proyect responds,
>
> Lou,
> Questions like how colonialism got started are baits of the
> type that another PEN-L'er is fond of. They are not posed to generate a
> serious response, but make the interrogated party look like an apostate
> from Marxism. If I were to answer these sorts of questions like "How did
> colonialism get started" or "Why has GDP gone up if capitalism is an
> immiserating system" in the depth and breadth they deserve, I'd have no
> time for anything else. Besides, the people posing the question should
> answer it themself if they know the answer. And no quote-mongering from
> Marx allowed. Kautsky maybe.
>
> Doyle
> I see various strains in your response which I have responded to in a more
> general way recently (Collaborative work on e-lists, Thursday, June 14,
> 2001).  But for example where you observe yourself being baited I have a
> different view of what you are driving at.  I see this list as any other
> e-list where knowledge production is happening.  And critical to that
> process is shared attention.  Your remark is about how attention is being
> given you in a manner that feels un-comfortable and un-acceptable in a
> serious knowledge production manner.  So anyone could say they don't want to
> feel baited and we are moving away from personalizing this to Yoshie.
>
> I think you under theorize what knowledge production is.  The exchange with
> Yoshie who is really a prolific thinker is primarily about how two prolific
> thinkers motivate the other to more knowledge production.  In part to show
> which one of you is saying something that the audience reading your replies
> to each other could also begin to share over the other point of view.
>
> One way this is under theorized in your commentaries is some conception of
> the collaborative requirements of knowledge production.  For example you
> complain you can't answer Yoshie adequately, because you would be working
> full time at just that task.  So it is not so much that you are being baited
> by Yoshie but you are admitting to limits of the medium.  I would observe
> that if you teamed up with Mark Jones to jointly produce a common work you
> could increase your productive output on a paper and meet certain kinds of
> demands.  In other words your remark does not acknowledge increasing your
> output through some kind of collaborative mechanism so that Yoshie's demands
> could be met.  You simply indicate they are impossible for you to meet.
>
> So taking that a step further, I think you pose your remarks above upon the
> level of what sort of knowledge production you expect, but in posing that
> remark you give Yoshie or anybody no adequate explanation of how to increase
> knowledge production  Primarily what spurs you is your evident frustration
> with people who don't share your views.  You are motivated by your intense
> feelings to do what you do.  But you have a very confused understanding of
> what exactly it is that needs to be done from the frustration you feel.
>
> To describe this list and other similar functioning lists such as your own,
> the moderator is the person who is really responsible for effective control
> of the emotional climate.  So that baiting or other impediments to discourse
> is dealt with as the moderator sees fit.  But your remarks go beyond what is
> generally the function of the moderator to demand a level of production of
> knowledge that can't be met by the voluntary labor involved in these lists.
>
> You demand what I think is not in your intellectual grasp but is where the
> technology is headed.  Knowledge production to increase has to be more
> explicitly organized around how the participants feel, gesture, and
> especially collaborate.  You don't acknowledge these as important issues in
> your complex objections to Yoshie, so you individualize Yoshie as
> responsible for more than she can accomplish.  You don't seem to look at
> this as a labor process to be de-personalized and made material, you instead
> want other people to do more than what most people can really produce.  That
> is extra levels of attention.
>
> I would see the collaborative aspects of knowledge production as where
> agreement can begin to produce more and more stable output.  You and Yoshie
> disagree, so it would not make sense for the two of you to collaborate.  Yet
> is also true that Yoshie's contribution is to help you raise your emotional
> motivation resulting in more output to a higher level able to surmount
> whatever thoughts she can throw at you.  And that is a not inconsiderable
> contribution to your work.  I would though wonder why your process of
> intellectual production reflects so little collaborative process in your
> postings.  That is you seldom have a byline that indicates a team effort.  A
> socialistic grasp of the communal character of knowledge production.  Of
> course many of us have little in the way of  social networks to utilize in
> regard to my point about a team response to Yoshie so I want this taken as
> not a personal remark directed at you, Louis Proyect, as much as an
> observation about the limitations of e-mail lists.
> thanks,
> Doyle Saylor

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Chico, CA 95929
530-898-5321
fax 530-898-5901